A change is as good as a rest, as the old saying goes.
With this edition of the Creston Valley Advance, the second of 2015 and the first one actually printed this year, readers will notice a new design for the front page.
“Like any business, we need to make occasional changes to stay fresh and current,” publisher Lorne Eckersley said on Monday. “Our old logo has served us well for decades, but even with occasional tweaks we felt that it was looking a bit dated.”
The design changes were made in-house by Advance staff.
“We are fortunate to have a very talented production assistant, Asha Wainionpaa, who took on the challenge of creating a new front page design,” Eckersley said. “With input from all the staff, she made changes until everyone was satisfied.”
The first edition of what was then called the Creston Valley Advert rolled off the mimeograph machine in 1948, marking the start of a dream for a new beginning in life for former Vancouver Island resident Alex Carruthers. He continues to be acknowledged as the Advance’s founder on the editorial page’s masthead.
“Alex had served in the Canadian Army and after he was discharged he started looking for businesses opportunities around the province,” Eckersley said. “Fortunately for those who followed, he chose the Creston Valley to settle in and raise a family.”
Carruthers operated the Advance in competition with the Creston Review (1908-1983) for over 30 years. After being operated independently by Bill and Sue Betcher and then Helena and Don White, the Advance has been owned by several media corporations.
“Today we are proud to be part of the Black Press group of newspapers,” Eckersley said. “It is Canada’s largest privately owned community newspaper company. The Black family has never wavered in its commitment to operating newspapers in small communities like the Creston Valley, and there is no cookie cutter approach. We have great independence in what we publish and how we operate our businesses.”
Eckersley said the new look of the front page (and smaller changes inside) are indications that the Advance is not complacent.
“We don’t make change for change’s sake, but because they make sense to us, our readers and our advertisers,” he said. “More and more subscribers are reading the Advance on the Internet and this new design reflects changes in our industry. We think it works for all of our readers, whether they are logging in to read stories online each day or settling in to open up their newspapers each week.”